Movie ReviewApril 23, 2014 The Railway Man by Mark RogetThe Railway Man offers such a visceral and realistic experience that it’s not always an easy watch, but it’s such a poignant and profound film, and has such a powerful impact that it’s a must see. Indeed, it’s an engrossing look at a juncture in world history that makes it required viewing--especially for those who have forgotten, or have yet to discover, the price that some paid for liberty. Adapted with effective skill by screenwriters Frank Cottrell Boyce and Andy Paterson from the 1995 autobiographical book by Scottish-born Eric Lomax, the film, as directed with insight and intelligence by Jonathan Teplizky, moves with high-intensity suspense. In addition, the cinematography by Garry Phillips and the melodious score by David Hirschfelder evoke a feeling for another time and another place, Portraying Lomax, the British Army officer, is the always captivating Colin Firth, giving another inspired performance. The extraordinary actor who won an Academy Award for his portrait in The King’s Speech, here gives a riveting, sensitive portrayal one won’t soon forget. It’s unlikely that any other actor would have been able to project such sincerity and emotion as does Firth. The movie begins as Lomax falls in love with Patti (Nicole Kidman), a woman he meets on a train. They get married and everything seems wonderful until Lomax’s nightmares begin to take over their lives. Lomax is overwhelmed by long-ago demons, debilitating memories of his incredible ordeal as a prisoner of war at the hands of the Japanese. Patti is determined to help him but that isn’t possible until Lomax is able to confront his past. The movie, filmed in Scotland, and Thailand, weaves back-and-forth in time as it travels to 1942 into the Japanese prison camp in Thailand during World War II. In excruciating detail, we see the quagmire in which Lomax and his fellow British soldiers have been imprisoned. In agonizing and deadly conditions, they are forced to build the Thai-Burma railway of death that will connect China with India. Japanese prisoners of war worked as slave labor in searing 100-plus heat, debilitating humidity, unbearable 16-hour days, and starvation rations. On top of that, the Japanese continuously beat and tortured most of the captives. Young Lomax (Jeremy Irvine convincing as young Firth) who patched together a radio receiver, comes in for particular viciousness by his primary tormentor Takashi Nagase (Tanrah Ishida). When the film fast forwards to the present, the camera focuses on Lomax’s face (Firth) so we see, close up, the man’s pain, his long-held anger, and his fierce determination for revenge. When he discovers that his persecutor, Nagase (Hiroyuki Sanada), now older, is still alive, he travels to Japan with plans for revenge. Although many who have seen The Railway Man believe that its high point is in its so-called compassionate ending, I found something more important, something that resonates with our own age more compelling. That’s the scene in which Nagase tries to explain the reason for his brutality and for Japanese atrocities—an explanation which would fit followers of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Mao. It’s the moment in which he reveals what it was like in Japan. “The Emperor was the god and you had to give your life to him. There was no you.” Does that not ring a bell?